GateHouseGate — I got a call a few weeks ago from a usually smart print editor who was outraged about aggregation sites linking to his paper's content. In his view, the aggregators were “stealing” his content and selling ads against it-even though all the aggregator was doing …

iPhone Nano Concept Photo? — It seems the “iPhone Nano” is the rumor that is going take the spotlight ahead of this year's Macworld, and while MacRumors is publishing these photos and rumors, we have some serious doubts about the likelihood of such a device.

Animoto On The iPhone: Trust Me, You Want It — Yeah, I gush about Animoto (and so do others). And I'll keep on gushing because they are an example of a startup that just focuses like a laser on doing one thing well. In their case, it's creating slideshows for users from their photos.

Notifications, indicators and alerts — Let's talk about notifications! As Ryan Lortie mentioned, there was a lot of discussion across the Ubuntu, Kubuntu, GNOME, KDE and Mozilla communities represented at UDS about the proposals Canonical's user experience design and desktop experience engineering teams have made for Ubuntu 9.04.

State of the Twittersphere - Q4 2008 Report — Taking a page from Technorati and their state of the blogosphere report that reviews survey data from a few hundred bloggers, we're publishing the “State of the Twittersphere” report. This is our first report, for Q4 2008.

Google Hands Out ‘Dogfood’ as Christmas Bonus — Groans are issuing from the Googleplex over this year's holiday bonus. In the past, the search engine paid cash — as much as $20,000 or $30,000 per Googler, we hear. This year? A cell phone. — Oh, but not just any cell phone …

HP Latest to Hop on iPhone Bandwagon — A week after Microsoft signed on, HP becomes the next Apple competitor to support the iPhone. — HP may have plans to compete with Apple in the smartphone market, but that doesn't mean it can ignore the iPhone. — Today, HP (NYSE: HPQ) …

Ditch the CD by Christmas 2009, Gartner tells music industry — Could this Christmas really be the swansong of the CD? Analyst Gartner certainly hopes so, having issued a challenge to the music industry to move to a ‘digital first’ strategy by the end of next year, in order to stop being held back by its reliance on CD revenues.

The virtual battle of the sexes — Online games' emphasis on combat has led many to paint them as male pursuits — Picture a typical player of a massively multiplayer game such as World of Warcraft and most people will imagine an overweight, solitary male.

Lengthening Out URLs — In our age of information and technology, there isn't as much mystery as there used to be. In that sense, short URLs (e.g., tinyurl.com/123) can be fun! Who knows where you'll wind up. — Some folks aren't as happy with uncertainty in hyperlinking; one of them …

Intel 160GB X25-M SSD begins shipping — Intel have begun shipping the 160GB version of their X25-M solid-state drive. The new SSD doubles the capacity of the previous model, the 80GB, and is initially only available in the 2.5-inch form-factor; a 1.8-inch 160GB X18-M SSD will begin shipping in January 2009.

LG announces laptop display designed for outdoor use — Laptops are notoriously hard to use outdoors. Backlit displays are difficult to read in bright sunlight under the best conditions. And if you have a notebook with a glossy screen, you might as well be carrying around a mirror.

Analysis: RIAA Strategy Shift Mired in Murky Legal Waters — The Recording Industry Association of America's new enforcement strategy is based on a questionable interpretation of what constitutes copyright infringement. And its copyright-detection services remain under a cloud at the center of a class action legal challenge.

Can Technorati Beat Google at Blog Search? — “It doesn't matter what Internet business you're in,” Richard Jalichandra, the CEO of blog search engine Technorati told me recently. “You're either going to have direct or indirect competition with Google and that's just the way it is...